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TFA is actually no better or worse than its immediate sequels, but had the benefit of being first its trilogy. It escaped criticism because people assumed it would be ‘fixed’ by subsequent films - then the sequels just did the same poo poo. I’m talking layers and layers of the same poo poo, eventually reaching levels impossible to ignore. Like, Snoke sucked from day one, but people assumed he would become interesting through some later incredible twist. Yet there is no twist. TLJ just presents the exact same lovely character. And, then, RoS reveals that Snoke was secretly NecroPalpatine - a less-interesting version of the exact same character. Snoke was only interesting insofar as he was the Soviet version of Sheev Palpatine. NecroPalpatine is less interesting than either previous version because, now in lich form, he has none of the finesse. He’s just like “I’m omnipotent, gently caress you”. Dull! SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 01:53
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Zoran posted:In retrospect the giant sperm was a pretty good idea. There’s a lot you could do with that Shoulda used it to plug the giant laser sphincter.
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Dec 19, 2023 01:54
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Robot Style posted:The attack on Starkiller Base was around pretty early - early enough that they were working on designs for a shield-busting superweapon that the Resistance would use to attack the base rather than relying on the shields to be shut down from within. Ironically that was his cameo role in TROS. He could have had pathos too. His step son was shot down right before he arrived. He coulda have shown some guilt in being too late, or regret or some emotion.
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Dec 19, 2023 02:07
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Vinylshadow posted:Do we know if the trench run was thought of before or after they decided to keep Poe around, and who would've run it if he had stayed dead? i feel like it was thought of after. i imagine rey or someone would've sabotaged some part of starkiller base otherwise. Neo Rasa posted:People here seem to have a lot of knowledge of stuff that was cut from the sequel trilogy or changed around during production so I do have a stupid question about that. holdo was a late addition to the script, so, it's possible that the entire mutiny/tracking/whatever plotline was just kind of shoved in to give poe (who was supposed to go to the casino planet) something to do. it doesn't make much sense. TheDeadlyShoe posted:when Jyn Erso is looking through the imperial archives in Rogue One, she notes a file on hyperspace tracking. So there's a precedent. I'm not sure if that was ever confirmed to be an explicit easter egg or a coincidence. except you could track through hyperspace in the original trilogy. they plant a tracking device on the falcon so it can lead them to yavin 4. in empire strikes back, the imperials make noise about "plotting all possible exit vectors" for the falcon. funnily enough, snoke's method of tracking via hyperspace is merely having a better computer than can compute the possible locations faster. Vinylshadow posted:Happy eight year anniversary to Star Wars: The Force Awakens i was never that hot on TFA. the first time i saw the trailer with the dramatic sting and finn's head bursting into frame, i thought it was a fan film. but i think there were ideas and possibilities that meant TFA could've potentially set up an interesting trilogy, although so much of it was hobbled by ideas that seemed to be put in for trailer moments or the big dramatic ending of rey handing luke the lightsabre. i assumed, stupidly, that disney had a plan. it was TLJ that made it clear to me they didn't have any plan and that the only place the trilogy was going was into the garbage. it's a shame because i think there's a whole scattering of great ideas for a sequel trilogy across the films (kylo ren, droid rebellion, stormtrooper rebellion, first order and resistance being die-hards trying to continue a Star War no one cares about, grumpy hermit luke) but what we got was a mess.
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Dec 19, 2023 04:31
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Vinylshadow posted:Happy eight year anniversary to Star Wars: The Force Awakens 
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Dec 19, 2023 05:08
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TFA is near comical levels of JJ brand Mystery Boxes in retrospect. All set up, no payoff.
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Dec 19, 2023 06:13
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TFA I enjoyed on its own but it definitely sets up mysteries that go nowhere, and in retrospect, yeah a big problem was the thinking was "We need it to be Rebels vs. Empire again that's what people liked", so the First Order is just there and a dominant force and there's a Resistance and we're left to assume that after Return of the Jedi everyone just royally dropped the ball. Like they could have actually done something cool with the reveal of a new enemy presence menacing the peaceful galaxy. If the New Republic must fall at least make it something we feel sad about. (And of course some of this is overreaction to the backlash against the prequels- keep "politics" to a minimum, no noblemen talking in stoic tones, nothing too glitzy or shiny, etc.) This is Abrams' big weakness as a filmmaker, at least when it comes to franchises. Like, I'll still go to bat for Super 8 and Star Trek '09, and Into Darkness *has its moments* but is definitely negatively affected by him thinking "Well c'mon, it's gotta be Khan, right? That's what the people wanna see." And so here it's gotta be TIE Fighters and X-Wings and Storm Troopers and Star Destroyers, we can't get new things or new sights because it's too in love with stuff we already saw. The movie is at its strongest focusing on the new characters and at its weakest when it sticks to playing the hits.
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Dec 19, 2023 09:59
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:Snoke was only interesting insofar as he was the Soviet version of Sheev Palpatine. NecroPalpatine is less interesting than either previous version because, now in lich form, he has none of the finesse. He’s just like “I’m omnipotent, gently caress you”. Dull! I actually wonder if Snoke would have worked better if he looked like Palpatine does before he goes all scary makeup. Like, just establish that the guy leading the new enemy faction is a wealthy nobleman who gives a good speech or two and bam, okay, charismatic leader of a fascist uprising. Hell you could probably blend that part with Hux.
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Dec 19, 2023 10:03
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Snoke being some rando intentionally deformed clone grown in a vat with with a false genetic memory given to him by Paul Saltines just undercuts what a cool character it could've been. I love Ian McDiarmid's portrayal of the Emperor just as much as anyone else, but they wasted his big return. Sheev learned nothing from his past. That's the THIRD TIME he's been hosed up and/or killed by his own Sith lightning. Maybe stop shooting lightning bolts out of your fingertips when there's someone fighting you at arm's length, dude.
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Dec 19, 2023 10:09
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i think they dropped the ball with snoke not going with the 'melted marble statue' idea they talk about in the concept art book
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Dec 19, 2023 11:55
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TFA also got pretty crippled by having anything resembling context ripped out because they were afraid it would be 'politics' and remind people of the prequels, and make them have a sad. In general the running away from the prequels at exactly the wrong time in exactly the wrong ways. Also with Rey I think she might be an example how modern writers may not know how to make a protagonist actually likeable. Which I think probably is part of the Mary Sue accusations, because pretty key traits of the og fanfic type is having few discernable actual personality traits beyond 'fan of the characters and wants to be in the story' as well as 'can do everything they do better than them'.
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Dec 19, 2023 12:11
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Rey was very likable and well liked
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Dec 19, 2023 14:14
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Rey could be a reaction to the prequels, too. The characters there are considered "wooden" and "flat" and people who like to miss points get a protagonist that is all emotional and stuff.
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Dec 19, 2023 14:26
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Ghost Leviathan posted:TFA is near comical levels of JJ brand Mystery Boxes in retrospect. All set up, no payoff. (If anything, what most people call Mystery Boxes most closely match what pro wrestling fans call "swerving the audience." There are even specific people with a pattern of doing this more consistently than JJ Abrams.)
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Dec 19, 2023 16:56
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Vinylshadow posted:Happy eight year anniversary to Star Wars: The Force Awakens TFA is a perfectly acceptable start of a trilogy. It’s main weakness being completely unoriginal. It has some weirdness, but that’s fine. I still remember walking away thinking I liked it and looking back I still do by virtue of being so similar to a new hope and having some fun moments for Rey, Kylo and even Finn. But then the rest happened and well…I don’t think you can dock points for a movie if the sequels don’t finish an adequate setup properly.
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Dec 19, 2023 17:16
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TFA is a lot like Rogue One: empty calories. It's perfectly fine and maybe even impressive when you walk away after seeing it the first time, but then you think about it for a few minutes and realize there isn't much there. To be fair to Rogue One, the concept of tying the end of that movie with the beginning of ANH was one of the freshest and most original ideas in all the ST. But you get a sense from watching that the entire movie is set dressing for that rather than actually telling a story with real characters.
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Dec 19, 2023 17:18
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Halloween Jack posted:Not to pick on you specifically, but I think the phrase "Mystery Box" needs to be retired for good. It's just become a synonym for "plot hole," another widely misused term, or for writers being sloppy and having no plan. Right; there's no such thing as a "mystery box". The speculation-hype came from the fandom, and began before TFA was even released. In the actually-existing TFA, mysteries were clearly removed from earlier versions. Kylo being Han's son was originally a twist. The problem for Disney was that general audiences, not so invested in 1980s secondary protagonist Han Solo, wouldn't really care that Kylo is the son of "guy who owns a boat". So, they just de-twistified it: casually explaining Kylo's family tree with copious expository dialogue, early in the film. Leia's his mom, Lukes his uncle, Vader's his grandpa. Bam, done. I strongly suspect that Luke showing up at the end was the same. JJ was thinking people'd be like "holy poo poo it's Luke!!!" but many would be like "who?" (Manderlorian Season 2 showed that JJ's pandering instincts aren't totally wrong, though. The people primed to hoot & holler at the cameo did so, with relish.) The identity of Rey's parents was not important in TFA; Rey never says anything about not knowing what her name is, or who her family were. She doesn't even mention her parents specifically. What mattered was why they abandoned Rey - and, though she believes that she was left there as some kind of test, the only plausible explanation is that they were afraid of her power. (TLJ goes with the alternative 'twist' that Rey's parents were horribly abusive psychos and the trauma gave her amnesia - which is both dumb and handled gracelessly). That's why Rey secretly being the antichrist is a sensible explanation, but "they sold you into slavery to protect you" is moronic. The correct answer is that they sold her into slavery to protect themselves. Likewise, with Snoke, there is zero reason to expect a huge twist about a secret identity. There isn't any such twist in the 'OT', save for the gradual reveal that the Emperor everyone's been talking about is also an evil warlock who directly commands Vader. By the same bad standards, TLJ is full of "mystery boxes": like, what happened to Luke's other students? Who are the "allies from the outer rim"? Stuff like that. The difference is simply that internet didn't go insane speculating about those things, turning the speculation into memes. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 17:52
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Grendels Dad posted:Rey could be a reaction to the prequels, too. The characters there are considered "wooden" and "flat" and people who like to miss points get a protagonist that is all emotional and stuff. I don't buy that. Anakin is more emotive than Rey is as often as not. That was the common complaint with his character, it was cringe how emotional he was!
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Dec 19, 2023 17:55
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Yeah, Snoke is probably the best example of where people expected there to be some big mystery because the actual character was so poorly-developed. But there was no mystery and they didn't tease that there was, he just sucked. Kind of ironic that TROS made him more interesting in retrospect, in the process of screwing up other things.
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Dec 19, 2023 17:59
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Schwarzwald posted:I don't buy that. Anakin is more emotive than Rey is as often as not. That was the common complaint with his character, it was cringe how emotional he was! Rey is safely emotional, where all her affection is directed towards 'the good guys' and all her rage is uncomplicatedly directed at the baddies. Her feelings towards characters like Luke and Kylo oscillate, based on whether she perceives them as baddies or not in a given moment.
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Dec 19, 2023 18:00
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Gonz posted:Snoke being some rando intentionally deformed clone grown in a vat with with a false genetic memory given to him by Paul Saltines just undercuts what a cool character it could've been. ROS would have been redeemed if when Rey confronts the Emperor if Snoke came up in the conversation and he was like "I cloned him wrong on purpose...as a joke!" and does that great evil cackle right as the huge battle starts. They should have at least made him 20 feet tall like his giant hologram, like nothing in TLJ would need to change just have him be in a giant throne
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Dec 19, 2023 18:35
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I have not felt a modicum of desire to revisit TFA since the day I saw it in theaters. There's just nothing there. Especially now that we all know it goes nowhere. But for as flawed as TLJ is, it's got a ton of sequences worth revisiting on their own merits, though I also have little desire to pop that on. I'll take the empty popcorn of the shows any day.
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Dec 19, 2023 19:34
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:(TLJ goes with the alternative 'twist' that Rey's parents were horribly abusive psychos and the trauma gave her amnesia - which is both dumb and handled gracelessly). Appropriate, because TLJ is "dumb and handled gracelessly" writ large. I to this day still can't believe we had a "but really, the bad guys are the arms suppliers getting rich" segment in a series of movies bookended by space hitlers destroying entire worlds with the power of the Force and entire stars. If anything, being an arms supplier is one of the most dangerous and thankless jobs in this galaxy. You're in a fixed location with logistics issues tying you down, the Sith/Empire mostly just seizes your poo poo, no matter who you supply the other side can way more easily bomb you to poo poo as a priority target than you can do anything about it, and there's no real obvious like, "cosmopolitan elite" that can escape planetary annihilation. Lando! Lando was a generic supplier of ammunition for laser weaponry and would have been exactly the person Rian Johnson was trying to poo poo on for easy culture war points in TLJ. He got his poo poo seized by the Empire. Mostly Rian Johnson seemed to have been writing a movie for some other setting than Star Wars. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 20:34
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:Appropriate, because TLJ is "dumb and handled gracelessly" writ large. I to this day still can't believe we had a "but really, the bad guys are the arms suppliers getting rich" segment in a series of movies bookended by space hitlers destroying entire worlds with the power of the Force and entire stars. More than that, if you are going to reveal that the real baddies are the people with an economic incentive to prolong the war... then why conclude the movie clarifying that it's almost religiously important that the war never end?
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Dec 19, 2023 21:23
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I still just think it's hilarious that they completely panicked after TLJ and decided to bring the Emperor back, then put it in the opening crawl instead of trying for an actual twist. I mean, this is a like the tenth time I've made some version of this same post in here, but we're like 4 years later and I'm still not over it. With the full context of what led to it and how it was handled, I just feel like it was one of the most absurd decisions in movie history. It's actually a pretty rare set of circumstances when you think about it because how many movies even have the option to blow a major potential twist in an opening crawl like that? The unique quality of that Star Wars opening crawl allowed for them to make the ultimate blunder.
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Dec 19, 2023 21:31
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Basebf555 posted:I still just think it's hilarious that they completely panicked after TLJ and decided to bring the Emperor back, then put it in Fortnite instead of trying for an actual twist. I mean, this is a like the tenth time I've made some version of this same post in here, but we're like 4 years later and I'm still not over it. With the full context of what led to it and how it was handled, I just feel like it was one of the most absurd decisions in movie history. It's actually a pretty rare set of circumstances when you think about it because how many movies even have the option to blow a major potential twist in Fortnite like that? The unique quality of that video game allowed for them to make one of the most classic of all blunders.
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Dec 19, 2023 21:34
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Schwarzwald posted:More than that, if you are going to reveal that the real baddies are the people with an economic incentive to prolong the war... then why conclude the movie clarifying that it's almost religiously important that the war never end? Also you can't loving tell me the First Order went off into the Unknown to regroup but got regular shipments of missiles from motherfucking Incom and Sienar
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Dec 19, 2023 21:35
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Halloween Jack posted:Starting a land war in Asia? lol I did a last minute edit because I realized I'd said it that way without even realizing. I guess that's what happens when you watch a movie like 100 times across 30 years.
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Dec 19, 2023 21:36
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:Also you can't loving tell me the First Order went off into the Unknown to regroup but got regular shipments of missiles from motherfucking Incom and Sienar Space Fish posted:What machine are you on that didn't auto-correct to "Magneto was right" ? 
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Dec 19, 2023 21:49
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:Appropriate, because TLJ is "dumb and handled gracelessly" writ large. I to this day still can't believe we had a "but really, the bad guys are the arms suppliers getting rich" segment in a series of movies bookended by space hitlers destroying entire worlds with the power of the Force and entire stars. 
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Dec 19, 2023 21:56
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I suppose it now falls to cowboy dave, screenwriter extraordinaire, to backfill how the arms dealers used the thrawn crisis to get set up or whatever. Can't waaaaait
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Dec 19, 2023 22:03
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Lol, kinda, I guess? But I'm not making up people to get outraged about/for, this is people, scenarios, and power dynamics they actually put on screen. If anything the other Disney movies make the comparison even worse. Who's the fatcat getting rich that's partying off on another casino world while the Empire is carting off Star Destroyer-sized cargoloads of hyperspace engine fuel and laser crystals? Nobody. The Empire does it because it can. So the bad guys are only the corporations throwing their support behind the Rebels/Republic/Resistance against Imperial/Sith oppression? VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 22:08
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Halloween Jack posted:Not to pick on you specifically, but I think the phrase "Mystery Box" needs to be retired for good. It's just become a synonym for "plot hole," another widely misused term, or for writers being sloppy and having no plan. I'm not sure what the accepted definition is but to me a Mystery Box a question that is prominently raised but not answered, with the promise that it will be answered later. What is in the goddamn basement is a mystery box. What is the name of the man with horned rimed glasses is a mystery box. Everything that happened on the Lost Island is a mystery box. People got sick of mystery boxes because it can be a hacky way of making it seem like a plot is very complicated or a lot of important developments are happening, just by asking questions and never providing answers until imminent cancellation holds you to them. TFA leaves a lot of questions open but is that mystery box writing or just leaving story space for a trilogy? I'm not sure but I do remember everyone who walked out of the theater talking about who is Rey's parents.
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Dec 19, 2023 22:34
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TFA and RoS are eminently vacuous and forgettable and will rightly be assigned to the dustbin of history as Disney piles more and more trilogies and content over them. TLJ however, will forever be the most distilled encapsulation of the late 2016 "I'm with her" mentality and stand the test of time as an artifact of a bygone age.
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Dec 19, 2023 22:38
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mycot posted:I'm not sure what the accepted definition is but to me a Mystery Box a question that is prominently raised but not answered, with the promise that it will be answered later. What is in the goddamn basement is a mystery box. What is the name of the man with horned rimed glasses is a mystery box. Everything that happened on the Lost Island is a mystery box. People got sick of mystery boxes because it can be a hacky way of making it seem like a plot is very complicated or a lot of important developments are happening, just by asking questions and never providing answers until imminent cancellation holds you to them. Like, the eponymous Mystery Box is (AFAIK) still unopened on Abrams' shelf. Has he written or directed anything where the whole idea is to tease mysteries and then never reveal the answer? So it's confusing from the get-go.
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Dec 19, 2023 22:45
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I kinda read Abrams' mystery box talk as more a justification for writing to individual plot beats or particular imagery without thinking too much about what stuff means or why things happen, because unanswered questions are intriguing personally I think this is fine except when your underlying framework as an author turns out to be dull or ignorant, and your mysterious ideas in juxtaposition just end up contradicting or repeating themselves
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Dec 19, 2023 23:25
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mycot posted:I'm not sure what the accepted definition is but to me a Mystery Box a question that is prominently raised but not answered, with the promise that it will be answered later. What is in the goddamn basement is a mystery box. What is the name of the man with horned rimed glasses is a mystery box. Everything that happened on the Lost Island is a mystery box. People got sick of mystery boxes because it can be a hacky way of making it seem like a plot is very complicated or a lot of important developments are happening, just by asking questions and never providing answers until imminent cancellation holds you to them. I feel like Rey's parents was absolutely meant to be some kind of mystery to be elaborated on later (presumably by other filmmakers) but Snoke's more in a "maybe they just wanted a guy like the Emperor" category, he only seems like a mystery because he's very poorly defined. Which again goes back to them being scared of having "politics" in the movie because of Prequel backlash.
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Dec 19, 2023 23:50
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Also lost answered all of the questions. Edit Except the people in the canoe
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Dec 20, 2023 00:07
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mycot posted:I'm not sure what the accepted definition is but to me a Mystery Box a question that is prominently raised but not answered, with the promise that it will be answered later. What is in the goddamn basement is a mystery box. What is the name of the man with horned rimed glasses is a mystery box. Everything that happened on the Lost Island is a mystery box. People got sick of mystery boxes because it can be a hacky way of making it seem like a plot is very complicated or a lot of important developments are happening, just by asking questions and never providing answers until imminent cancellation holds you to them. Well hold on a moment; we need to pay attention to history. The question of Rey’s parentage doesn’t come from the film; it comes from the famous TFA teaser trailer, which centres around a voiceover of Luke Skywalker praising a powerful family member. Here’s a typical forums post from immediately after the release of the film: “I can let [Rey’s superpowers] go as her having a latent force ability and just being good at flying and fixing things (like Anakin). [But] I keep wondering why the trailer quote from Luke wasn't in the film: ‘My father has it, I have it, and you have it too.’ Is Rey a Skywalker?” -some guy named AdamW, from Boardgamegeek.com. December 28, 2015. The quote in the trailer is actually referring to Luke’s nephew, Ben Solo. Y’know, the insanely-powerful psychic guy who’s related the Luke. And it wouldn’t make any sense for Rey to not know her father’s name. She would recognize Luke as her dad immediately, if that were true. But, nonetheless, bloodline speculation suddenly became extremely lucrative clickbait: “It seemed pretty obvious to me that Rey is Solo's daughter, not Luke's. That partially explain[s] why Rey is so darn good at piloting and repairing spaceships (she got it from Dad).” -some guy named Smintie, replying to AdamW. Genetic repairing ability? It doesn’t matter if this makes any sense whatsoever; we’re just gonna throw out names of male and female characters who could have potentially hosed at some point, holding on to any shred of justification. Doesn’t Han seem oddly paternal towards these adult children he’s protecting? What if Rey’s various father figures are all literally her father??? Again, Rey in TFA never expresses any desire to find out who her parents are, because she was old enough to know their names. Rey either never had a last name, or never bothers to mention it. She never even says the word “parents” in the film; the family could have been one parent, or her grandmother, or anything. We’ve all seen movies where the central mystery is “who am I?”. So, we know what they look like - and TFA is blatantly not that. The question is never raised at any point. When Ryan Johnson wrote TLJ, he was writing it in response to the fandom. The film suddenly contains like a half-dozen references to blood, bloodlines, heritage, parentage…. Mark Hamill is literally made to say the phrase “Skywalker Blood” - even though, y’know, the line from the TFA teaser only referred to “my family” (which, we all know, could mean anything). The result was the obverse of bloodline speculation: anti-bloodline speculation. Rey is going to “democratize the force” or something, by recruiting a bunch of random talented orphans into a Jedi Order, where they’ll be trained to defend the Republic - exactly like in the prequels! Broom kid! Broom kid’s gonna save us all! Wait, that doesn’t make sense? Again, it doesn’t fuckin’ matter because we’re not talking about the movies at all here. We’re effectively talking about a multi-front online flame war between various fanfiction writers, which happened to loosely correspond with the fuckin’ culture war. But, yeah: no mystery box. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Dec 20, 2023 |
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Dec 20, 2023 00:21
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My impression of TLJ was that it invented a bunch of character drama that never existed while pretending that it did exist. But if it's coming from fandom speculation instead that I'm just unaware of then that makes a great deal of sense to me.
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Dec 20, 2023 00:30
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